Russia is considering a ban on Manhunt and other violent videogames in the wake of a Moscow shooting that left six people dead.

30-year-old Dmitry Vinogradov killed six of his co-workers at Russian pharmacy chain Rigla last week, reportedly after his romantic advances toward a female colleague were spurned. Rigla reps said Vinogradov had "never shown any signs of psychiatric instability" and he'd also passed checks on his mental health as part of the process licensing him to own firearms, but he had reportedly been drinking for five days prior to the attack and posted a "misanthropic manifesto" on Russian social network vKontakte just hours before the rampage.

Even so, it soon came to light that Vinogradov was a fan of the infamous Rockstar classic Manhunt, and that was enough to lead politicians to call for a ban on the game and for stricter controls on all violent videogames. United Russia Deputy Sergei Zheleznyak called on Roskomnadzor (the Federal Surveillance Service for Mass Media and Communications) to ban the game outright, since its availability to children through the internet is against Russian law. Franz Klintsevich, another United Russia Deputy, supported the initiative but went even further, calling for "bloody games in general" to be restricted.

Russia is a little behind the times on this one; Manhunt is one of the most famously controversial videogames of all time, but it's also been kicking around since 2003. But the nation has also spent the last couple of decades grappling with rather more pressing problems than videogame ratings, so while conversations about age-appropriate gaming may seem old hat to most Western gamers, it's one that Russia is yet to have.

Vladimir Burmatov, the First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Education, called for an "interdepartmental commission" to supervise the sale of videogames. He also said that violent videogames were a factor in Vinogradov's decision to carry out the attack.

So why didn't they ban Guitar Hero after they arrested Pussy Riot?The way I see it the guy being a fan of Manhunt was the only indication that he was sociopath. If anything they should be selling more of these games and keeping tabs on who buys them.

yeh because violent video games are the biggest problems in Russia today. How about they concentrate on being able to feed the people in the country side or I don't know bears lets just blame bears makes about as much sense to me. Get the bears before a guy watches nat geo and mauls a toddler.

Man kills people, clearly socially unstable and mentally unhinged. The cause? pressed buttons on a piece of plastic to make polygons move on a screen for too long. MAKES SENSE!

Blows my mind that these kinds of stories still happen, are these old tired sad politicians still so inept and ignorant that the only way they can "accept" random mass murderings is "oh well clearly modern media is to blame".

I really hope our generation doesn't grow up to blame whatever new form of media exists 20 years from now on some crazy idiot deciding to shoot a bunch of people. Perhaps not allowing crazy idiots access to guns would be a good place to start.

You have to love politicians. I can't help but feel that people overall misunderstand kids. If anyone has ever seen the original Time Machine, the main character goes far far far into the future. There he finds a Utopian society where violence is unheard of and everyone is young and beautiful. Turns out those pesky Morlocks were eating folks, go figure. But there was a part in the original, where the main character is trying to save these people that followed the air raid signal to go down into the caves. And none of them are fighting or trying to save themselves. So he gets attacked and he starts punching and pummeling them. And it was upon seeing this that some of them started fighting back. But there is this peculiar very short scene in there where one of the guys looks at his hand in a strange way as he curls his digits into a fist, as if this never occurred to them.

That is what politicians think about kids. That they are taught via videogames, television and movies, how to be violent. That they never have machinations that involves hurting other kids or people. But that is certainly not the truth at all. Dan Ariely did all kinds of research on the subject. People think that kids start innocent and are taught methodologies of violence as they get older. So kids are perfect, untouched souls and adults are violent creatures that are forced to suppress their monstrous urges. The reality is much different. The reality is that kids are only innocent in that when they are violent, they do not try to suppress or hide it. The vast majority of adults have learned to suppress or hide their violent urges. But those urges have been with them since they started gaining and understanding of the world. I watched my friends 3 year old daughter take a toy sword and batter his 4 year old son across the face until his parents acted to intervene. This is not a special case of an excessively violent child. This is most children. I am not making a case for kids being evil or anything like that. I am not saying that people as a whole are bad, though some certainly are. But to think that a video game has taught someone or influenced someone to be violent is just a delusion.

Everybody is always looking for something to blame when some idiot and/or Sociopath does something awful. The truth of the matter is it's not the violent media, the parents, the environment these people grow up in, the weapons, or whatever other B.S. reason that people always blame for these kinds of things,

it's the person that is responsible for their actions, nobody and nothing else.

There are PLENTY of people throughout the world who play and watch violent entertainment, have access to weapons, have horrible neglectful parents and grew up in a crime ridden crappy environment, and yet they DO NOT kill people, in fact some of them are the sweetest, most pacifistic, and most alturistic people that you'd ever meet, just look up some famous people that have changed the world for the better and you'll find some of them.

CardinalPiggles:Why not ban guns rather than digital media? The government licensed him the means to kill 6 people and it's the fault of a game? I don't understand why civilians need guns nowadays anyway.

if you think you need a gun to kill 6 people you live a very sheltered life. I could kill 6 people fairly quickly with a knife from my kitchen, especially if they know me and I can get close like this dude did.

OT: Well, it was the woman that spurned him, and the alcohol (likely vodka) that he was drinking that drove him to it.

The only sensible answer is to ban women and alcohol before the vidya games.

Yes, a video game caused his rampage. I'm sure it had nothing to do with him drinking for five days straight like a bad Russian stereotype, or that he worked in the mind/soul destroying industry of retail pharmacy, or that he was rejected romantically by someone, or that rambling manifesto he wrote during said period of being a bad Russian stereotype.

What's that? Did I just hear an objection from somebody in the audience?

Are you saying that despite passing the background checks to carry a gun that he was actually a slow boiling pot of crazy? That the thing to finally break his fragile psyche was being rejected by a woman (or man, the article doesn't specify) and that in his downward emotional spiral he drank himself numb to the point that all of his crazy boiled over into a rage post on the internet? That even after that rage post his unquenched anger and drunken haze combined with his well hidden mental instability drove him to the conclusion that there was truly no place for him in this harsh, uncaring world? That, that revelation caused him to pick up a gun and try to take as many of his co-workers with him as he could including the one that spurned his affection, hopefully going out in a bloody blaze of glory that would at the very least allow his miserable life to leave a stain on the tapestry of history?

Mr. Wright, do you have any evidence to prove this preposterous theory?

Guys gets pissed off and goes on a shooting spree. Sad fact of life, but it happens more often than not. Politicians won't learn how to deal with the problem if they keep thinking media influence is the one constant in these crimes.

CardinalPiggles:Why not ban guns rather than digital media? The government licensed him the means to kill 6 people and it's the fault of a game? I don't understand why civilians need guns nowadays anyway.

if you think you need a gun to kill 6 people you live a very sheltered life. I could kill 6 people fairly quickly with a knife from my kitchen, especially if they know me and I can get close like this dude did.

You're right, I do live a very sheltered life. But I still think that they might have had more of a chance if he didn't have a gun.

Andy Chalk:30-year-old Dmitry Vinogradov killed six of his co-workers at Russian pharmacy chain Rigla last week, reportedly after his romantic advances toward a female colleague were spurned...he had reportedly been drinking for five days prior to the attack and posted a "misanthropic manifesto" on Russian social network vKontakte just hours before the rampage.

Ya-huh. It was definitely because he liked Manhunt, the game from 2003, that he killed those people. Not in any way because he may have had some drinking problems or anything.

ah, the typical cheap excuse for politicians to solve a problem that has no connection what so ever. and then they wonder why it still doesnt stop. im really curious: what if one country doesnt show any kind of violent movies or games, only harmless dramas and comedies, and someone kills few people, will they still blame games and movies for it???

seriously. who the hell puts these idiots in charge to say that games are bad???

CardinalPiggles:Why not ban guns rather than digital media? The government licensed him the means to kill 6 people and it's the fault of a game? I don't understand why civilians need guns nowadays anyway.

I have guns because I have land and animals. There are legitimate reasons for people to own guns, banning the guns means only the criminals will have guns.

so once a week they could make news with going to university/school/theater/cafeterial/insrtyourplacehere and shootign the shit out of everyone they hate.

instead of attacking games they shoudl rather attack the problem that caused him to attack them. very likely, knowing its russia, the coworkers have endlessly laughed at him after the girl said now, possibly the girl too.when i meet such people i want to kill them too, but im too selfish :D

CardinalPiggles:Why not ban guns rather than digital media? The government licensed him the means to kill 6 people and it's the fault of a game? I don't understand why civilians need guns nowadays anyway.

I have guns because I have land and animals. There are legitimate reasons for people to own guns, banning the guns means only the criminals will have guns.

As well as crazy people with murderous tendencies. People like that kid who recently shot and killed 6 people because a girl rejected his advances. Or that Norwegian bloke who shot and killed about 70 people, mainly kids!

Owning guns for the sake of owning guns is ridiculous. I bet this guy didn't have land or keep farm animals.

Metalrocks:im really curious: what if one country doesnt show any kind of violent movies or games, only harmless dramas and comedies, and someone kills few people, will they still blame games and movies for it???

I can see the right wing in Moscow reading up on this and going "Quick! This is our chance to make a huge dent in the ranks of people who still think Russia's a democracy! Let's take one instance and instigate a ban on all violent games because of it! Our voter base will love us for it, the complacent masses will get in on the action, Putin's going to be glad because we suppressed another poor schmuck as excessively as possible!

We cannot lose from this!"

Can someone get some plane tickets to Jack Thompson, all expenses paid? He'd make a killing over there, I'm sure.

2) It's reasonable to speculate a guy angry and disconnected enough to kill a bunch of people in frustration might not feel too much guilt knocking off a illegitimate copy of a sleazy horror game from a big developer.

---------

Anyway, disheartening story, sad and pointless. Videogames not to blame, but understand people's anger. I guess the silver lining is that he was quickly stopped and is now detained. Russian prisons are not nice.